


Tears

by TheSilenceIsKillingMe (TheVoice21)



Series: Pitiful Child [2]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Batfam Server Valentine's Fic Exchange, Beta we live like Batgirls, Buby Dick, Buby Gar, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Gen, I Tried, Minor Character Death, Once again not explicity mentioned but implied, This is dealing with it, Valentine's Day Fic Exchange, Wally West died, i made myself sad writing this, or at least my go at it, sorry mother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-22 10:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22714912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVoice21/pseuds/TheSilenceIsKillingMe
Summary: Garfield felt numb. Perhaps it was the beginnings of frostbite, slowly gnawing away at his limbs. Perhaps it was the longing clawing at the gaping hole in his heart, one that had long since scarred over. Or perhaps it was his mind refusing to acknowledge the new hole forming in his heart, a far more recent wound, one that was still bleeding heavily.And perhaps it was a brutal mixture of all three, he couldn't help but think, the snow beneath him was perfect for frostbite. Just how his mother’s violent death was perfect for scars and the lack of Wally’s jokes were only building up his evidence that he’s gone.Wally's death is hard and unexpected.
Relationships: Bart Allen & Dick Grayson, Bart Allen & Garfield Logan, Dick Grayson & Garfield Logan, Dick Grayson & Wally West (mentioned)
Series: Pitiful Child [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633180
Comments: 11
Kudos: 80
Collections: Roasted Server Valentine's Day Exchange 2020





	Tears

**Author's Note:**

  * For [widdlewed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/widdlewed/gifts).



> For Mother! HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! I hope you liked this, this my hand at coping about a long-gone death by making other's not cope...
> 
> I don't really know where this angst came from ngl??? It was originally pretty fluffy than this happened...

Garfield felt numb. Perhaps it was the beginnings of frostbite, slowly gnawing away at his limbs. Perhaps it was the longing clawing at the gaping hole in his heart, one that had long since scarred over. Or perhaps it was his mind refusing to acknowledge the new hole forming in his heart, a far more recent wound, one that was still bleeding heavily. 

And perhaps it was a brutal mixture of all three, he couldn't help but think, the snow beneath him was perfect for frostbite. Just how his mother’s violent death was perfect for scars and the lack of Wally’s jokes were only building up his evidence that  _ he’s gone. _

_ Gone and never coming back. _ Gone with the wind, or at least that what he could only assume. The ashes were never recovered. Never would be, after all, they were so fine and only there for  _ seconds and now he’s  _ **_gone._ ** Gone like the ashes and gone like…

_ Gone like his mother. _

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It didn’t take long for the fire in his heart to melt the numbness away. The flames were destructive, lashing out at anything that moved. Fists found themselves pounding more often than not, the target ranging from anything to everything. He had stopped caring where they landed a while ago - the dried black blood on his hands spoke loud enough. He beat until his own hands bled, bled through the layers of gauze wrapped around his hands from previous times.

It wasn’t fair. Wally had wanted out. He wanted to live his life with Artemis, wanted to graduate university, wanted to spend his weekends with Nightwing doing whatever it is they did when they disappeared for the entirety of Friday. Wally didn’t deserve the hand dealt and now he had paid the price.

If Wally had been just a bit more stubborn. Just a bit more  _ selfish  _ none of them would be in this predicament, least of Wally. If Wally had been faster or even if Garfield had been faster… if,  _ if,  _ **_if…_ **

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Garfield sat on the medical bed his hands in front of him. Nightwing sat in front of him on a stool, carefully wrapping yet another layer of gauze around his hands after removing the tattered remains of his last. He was careful in dabbing away the dried blood that had mixed, forming a far duller and dirtier colour than natural.

Megan’s lips were pursed in the way that meant she wasn’t sure how to approach the situation. Nightwing’s face was held in a way that Garfield couldn’t read. He had been unable to read his expressions ever since Wally’s death. Not that it bothered him, Nightwing could do whatever the heck he wanted. Not like Garfield could stop him; he didn’t feel pain, physically and now it appears emotionally. He didn’t cry even once, not a frown, not a shaking of the body. Just nothing - no emotion, no pain, no nothing. Not even after his best friend died. Not after his best friend’s brutal murder.

Yeah. Garfield really didn’t care what Nightwing thought about Garfield’s actions, after all, it’s not like he  _ felt  _ anything. He just felt the immense urge to hit something.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Garfield hadn’t spoken to Nightwing in a month. He didn’t really care. It was too painful to sit in that thick silence with him. The silence stemmed from Nightwing’s deep nothingness. His inability to feel remorse, to mourn a death. To be human.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bart took it the hardest. It had been obvious that Wally had been a father figure to Bart in his life from the get-go. This only cemented it. He had sobbed for hours in the arctic afterwards, unable to move from where he knelt in the ice. He had been a hair’s breadth away from hypothermia until Nightwing had carried him to Megan’s ship. Bart had proceeded to bury his face in his suit, sobbing until his throat was too dry to make noise. Garfield would know, he had ended up crying on Nightwing’s shoulder as well.

Bart had stuck to his side since. Nightwing responded by giving either him or Garfield his full attention. Preparing and bringing food when they hadn’t wanted to eat, helping them prepare for bed when they couldn’t move, holding them as they cried or even holding them as they pound their fists into him, desperate for some release of pent up anger and frustration.

When Garfield had all but completely rejected Nightwing, he completely threw himself into looking after Bart. Nightwing still regularly made check-ups on Garfield and was there when he had a fit. It was clear, however, that he was investing more time into Bart. In the beginning, Bart and had clung desperately to Nightwing, sobbing his eyes out into his shoulder, then as time went on he became more and more distressed by Nightwing’s ‘negligence’ of Garfield. Garfield honestly didn’t care what Nightwing did. He didn’t need his thick silence, or his nonexistent feelings, or his empty gaze and pitch-black glasses. No, Garfield was much better off without him. 

No matter what the ache in his heart said otherwise.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Garfield sat alone in the darkness. The nightmares had awoken him, leaving him cold and sweating. His head buried into his knees, a desperate attempt to keep what little warmth he had circulating. Left with nothing but the gnawing cold sinking their claws deep into his fragile skin, he started remembering the warmth. 

The warmth of his mother curled up against his side in the winter nights. The warmth of the sun on his back, a day spent in the safari. The warmth of a cold hand on his shoulder. The warmth of Bart’s smiles. The warmth of the cup of hot chocolate on his bedside table.

Perhaps the cold of the nightmares had gotten to his heart. Frozen it solid. Solid ice that might shatter at the warmth of hot chocolate in his hands and down his throat. It was the only possible explanation for the tears that streamed down his face, the silence of them long gone.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Garfield knew what he had to do. He had known for quite a while, and it haunted him. Late in the night, it would keep him awake, staring blankly at the ceiling fan. Going round and round.

His behaviour was truly pathetic. He had been raised better than this. If his actions were truly an amount to all his mother’s teachings, he was truly letting her down. She would be so disappointed with him, hurting another to try and numb his blinding pain. He was better than that.

Round and round. Silent in its rotation.

Garfield had dumped all his anger and sadness on Nightwing. Garfield had been too childish to deal with his pent up emotions, forcing them on the nearest person and taking it out on the person nearest to them. Finding excuses to blame it on him. And they were truly some of the weakest excuses he had ever seen.

Round and round. A never-ending cycle…

His excuses had hurt Nightwing so much. He could see it in the way Nightwing paused just a split second after he spoke. Nightwing probably didn’t know of the impact they had on him. He had always been so confused when it came to emotions, they seemed far too complex to him. Garfield suspected his lack of understanding stemmed from what caused him to look the way he did. Act the way he did.  _ Struggled _ the way he did.

Garfield rolled over onto his side and shut his eyes. He really missed the library.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Garfield had spent more than a few sleepless nights building up the resolve to do it. More than a few too many. At this point, he knew he was being cowardly, hiding away from his issues. But today was when he broke the cycle of sleepless nights, of nights alone in his cold, dark room at the mercy of his nightmares, of nights alone instead of with hot chocolate in the library. Of nights far better spent.

“Nightwing,” he didn’t understand where the courage came from, he felt like crying. “We-... we- I need to talk.”

Nightwing looked up from where he was reading, his posture that had been stiff as a board slowly relaxing. Garfield knew he had probably heard him waking up, heard his breathing, heard his heart. He had probably heard his crying too. Nightwing heard everything.

“Ah, sure Gar. What’s up?” Nightwing had lost his calm tone of voice in the past while, he constantly sounded on edge. Garfield honestly wasn’t too sure if this was a positive development or very, very,  _ very  _ negative one. He hoped it was the latter.

“I-” Garfield felt his voice get stuck in his throat. He forced it out anyway, this was long overdue and he had no room to back out. “I’m so sorry!”

Nightwing’s body recoiled softly at the sight of Garfield’s tears. His hand wavered in hesitation as Garfield curled to his knees in sort of crouch, his hands furiously wiping at his tears. He could see Nightwing struggling with what to do - no older, emotionally adept team member was nearby after all. Garfield had made sure of it.

“I've been an awful friend to you. I was so self-centred in my own grief, I didn’t think to consider you!” Garfield rushed out all the words as if they would leave him if he didn’t speak fast enough. “I've said such horrible things to you, and, and, and I’ve ignored you and-”

Garfield had to momentarily stop, his throat was filled with his tears. He could see Nightwing panicking at the situation, not knowing how to handle it. He wasn’t letting this go this easy though.

“It’s not your fault and I blamed so much on you, and for things so completely out of your control.” By now Nightwing looked a little more put together, and almost if he dared say it, sad. “And I have to apologise and I have to make this up to you-”

“Why would you have to make up for it?” Nightwing spoke softly, his voice barely there and so, so confused. His voice sounded a little wet if Garfield truly pressed. “You were right. I don’t feel anything after all… not even after his death. His murder.”

Garfield looked up and wanted to cry harder. Had this honestly what had been going on inside his head the entire time? This self-blame for something so beyond his control and quite possibly understanding. Had Garfield been the one to put those thoughts in his head? Those truly disgusting seeds that should have never existed? Garfield felt awful.

“Why,  _ why would you think that _ ?” Garfield’s voice broke. His heart broke with it. “Why would you ever believe those horrid words I said. How would you think that? How...how would Redjay let you? How would Bart? How would Bluejay, heck! How would Batman himself let you dare think such a thing?”

“They don’t know…” Garfield almost didn’t hear him, his voice so soft. Garfield looked at the hands in his lap. At the shaking that was far from gentle. And then it clicked. The self-blame, the willingness to take what Garfield said to him, the  _ desire  _ to hide what he thought from those closest to him, even the shaking hands. It was rather simple really, now that Garfield saw all the pieces together. “They already know it after all. I don’t need to tell them. Batman always knows the truth after all, and the truth is I’m a monster who’s a poor imitation of a human that once was and certainly isn’t anymore.”

“You’re wrong.” 

Nightwing looked up from his hands, his face was less than carefully neutral. 

“You  _ are  _ grieving. You just don’t realise it. You can’t  _ name  _ your emotions is all, you can only assume you don’t feel a thing when you don’t know how to acknowledge it.”

Nightwing opened his mouth to rebuke but Garfield beat him to it. “You blame yourself for his death, you blame yourself for ‘not feeling anything’ while you, more than possibly were grieving the hardest out of all of us.

“You didn’t know how to handle all of this, so you didn’t. You threw yourself into helping others handle it. Bart, Redjay, Artemis, and myself. You felt it, and I can prove it if you’d let me.”

“I-I” Nightwing’s voice was close to broken, and Garfield was almost a little taken back by the raw  _ emotion  _ he heard in it. “I would like to be proven wrong. Please-please show me I have feelings, let me mourn Wally.”

Garfield wanted to cry, and quite possibly address a hundred and one other issues that Nightwing has brought up but instead, he focused on the most pressing one. His grief.

Ever so gently and ever so slowly, Garfield reaches up and takes off Nightwing’s sunglasses. He’s met with the most shocking golden, almost glowing, eyes. They were slits, like a cat’s and more than a little unnatural, but that isn’t what took his breath away. It’s the black tears the mark his cheeks. While he had known they were there, to see them run down his snow-white cheeks, staining them, was a whole other thing.

“Tears, Nightwing,” Nightwing lifted a tentative hand to his tears, touching them in disbelief, looking at his now stained hand in disbelief, “A man without emotions doesn’t have tears, Nightwing.”

“Ah, I suppose he doesn’t, does he?” The tears started falling a lot faster and harder, “Thank you, Garfield, for showing me how to cry again.”

Garfield could only give a weak smile. After all, he was merely showing Nightwing what was already happening, not teaching him. “Only showing what was already there…”

“Oh, Gar, you don’t understand. I haven’t been able to cry since I was ten.” Nightwing looked off to the distance slightly, his golden eyes unfocused. “That’s when they ran out you see.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Garfield and Nightwing went back to normal and everyone on the team collectively sighed a breath of relief. The Bats kept a closer eye on the two, they could see the good Garfield was doing for their brother. The Bats adore Nightwing, likely more than Garfield himself, however, they were in therapy to help process their emotions. They were clueless about Nightwing’s whole situation.

~~It didn’t help that Nightwing had stopped attending his sessions with Black Canary on top of that.~~

Garfield reclaimed his place beside Nightwing when the nightmares came. It was much warmer curled up against Nightwing’s side in a blanket that across from him with only Hot chocolate to warm his insides. ~~(~~ ~~Actually, it was colder the first time, Nightwing had a ridiculously low body temperature. But he got used to soon and now it was far warmer)~~

Garfield had rejoined Bart and Nightwing in the long hours of the day when Garfield and Bart have finished their lessons for the day and the other team members are busy. Bart brightened like the first rays of dawn when Garfield approached him and explained what had happened between Nightwing and him, and how he had resolved it. He had stated that ‘I am so happy it happened in this timeline!’ and at further questioning as to why  _ he would  _ want  _ that upon anyone,  _ Bart had revealed that this was a key turning point in their relationship. 

And Garfield supposed that if tears were what it took to build their relationship to the point Bart had described it was in the future… well, he didn’t really mind.


End file.
